MAGAZINE EARLY RETURNS RECOMMENDATIONS

Given the minimal control you have over the magazines sent to your business, outside of sales, returning stock early is the only control you have over cashflow. Here are our recommendations for magazine early returns: 

1. Do not early return any title the day it comes in as doping so could deny your business certain sales.
2. Early return from your shelves, starting from 2 weeks after titles arrive.
3. The early returns process is best separated from magazine arrivals.
4. Ideally, magazines should not be on your shelves for more than four weeks, unless they are continuing to sell well.
5. Check each title before you early return. For example, if you received 10 of a monthly and three weeks in you have sold two, you could early return four copies.
6. Ignore delayed billing in your early returns assessments.
7. Treat early returning as a management issue. Whoever does it needs to be thoughtful in their approach and engaged so as to not deny certain magazine sales.
8. If you find yourself regularly early returning a title, ask for fewer copies.

If you do early return leaving less stock that you would usually sell and then sell out – we think the distributor ought deny any request for extra stock.